We Don’t Sell Fire Insurance

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Transcript:

I want to spend some time during the month of June talking to you about the subject of the security that we have in Christ. Not from the standpoint of, well, not with the intent of attacking anybody who may disagree on it, which I would assume does not include anybody in here. This is not to give you proof, ha ha, we’re right and they’re wrong, so that then you can go out and tell them the same. But to talk about the security in Christ more from a standpoint of, let’s be reminded of what He has done for us.

Let’s be reminded of the incredible gift that He’s given us, the incredible certainty that He’s given us, the incredible assurance that He’s given us, of knowing that we have a relationship with Him that is not only purchased by Him, but that is also sustained by him in spite of our weaknesses. That he takes care of us, that he takes care of us not only physically, but he takes care of us spiritually. And I want us to look at this over the next few weeks, again, not as a doctrinal let’s prove everybody else wrong, although I do think we’re right, otherwise I wouldn’t be here preaching this.

I wouldn’t be a Baptist if I didn’t believe in eternal security. And that’s one important point to get out of the way. I don’t believe in eternal security because I’m a Baptist. I’m a Baptist because I believe in eternal security.

I believe that’s what the Bible teaches. So the Bible always trumps Baptist doctrine if they’re not saying the same thing. But again, coming at this not from a standpoint of let’s prove everybody else wrong, but more from a standpoint of let’s be mindful of exactly what he purchased for us.

And in order to start off this series, I want to talk first of all about what eternal security is not, what this assurance does not mean. And there are a lot of people who look at it as fire insurance. We don’t sell fire insurance.

I haven’t sold fire insurance in quite a few years. I used to be an insurance agent. Goodness, that was back until 2008.

So I haven’t been an insurance agent in a long time. But I used to sell insurance. And sometimes we would have people come in wanting to buy car insurance from us.

I worked for farmers. And we’d have people coming from other companies and they’d want to buy insurance from us. I’m sorry, I don’t even know how you still have a license with the number of claims, the number of accidents, the number of violations you have on your ticket.

Why does any one person have this many accidents? I had a woman tell me one time in my office, well, that’s what insurance is for. Okay.

I don’t know that you’re the kind of customer I want. I understand Geico is very nice. Call the little lizard.

He’ll be glad to help you. Insurance. I’ve never thought about it along these lines, but I guess for some people, the idea of having insurance could increase how reckless you could.

I can take risks now because I have insurance. I remember, I don’t know exactly what I was doing, but I know it was probably something that looked dangerous. I doubt it was too dangerous or I wouldn’t have been doing it.

But at the church in Arkansas, I was doing, I don’t know, maybe I was on a ladder or hanging banners in the auditorium or something. But somebody said, oh, you be careful, you be careful up there now. I said, why?

My health insurance kicked in. I’ve got coverage. My insurance agent for my car and house was a member of the church and said to me, I’m so glad I don’t carry your health coverage.

I said, aren’t you though? But in reality, I would not be reckless just because I had coverage, but some people might look at it that way. Hey, I can play with matches because I have fire insurance on my house.

That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, does it? It’s there in case we need it, not as an incentive to need it. But there’s this idea.

There’s this idea. And I haven’t heard the phrase used a lot in the last few years, but I know the phrase used to be used more frequently, that salvation is not fire insurance. Well, I agree wholeheartedly with that.

It’s not intended to be fire insurance. And what I mean by that is the idea that we say a few words, we say a prayer, and now we’re covered, we’re protected from the fire, the fires of judgment, And now we go on about our business and forget about the policy that we have until we need it. It doesn’t work that way.

That’s not what the Bible teaches about salvation. That’s not what the Bible teaches about security. It is not fire insurance.

So I want to take you through this passage in 1 John 5, which I preached on before. I don’t recall if I preached on it here. But I preached on it from the standpoint of some things we can know for sure.

never from this standpoint of assurance of salvation, but you could see how the two go hand in hand. If 1 John chapter 5 talks about knowing that God’s promises are true, of knowing who God is with certainty, and that’s the reason why he’s written this, then some things follow from that. If we know who God is with certainty, and if we know with certainty that God’s promises are true, then it follows that his promises about eternal life are true.

Everlasting life are true. And I would ask you just as a little aside, how long is eternity? For some people, eternity, we hear eternal life, but eternal life, eternity is not as long as it used to be.

I submit to you that when God said eternal life, that’s exactly what he meant. But we turn to 1 John, if you’re not already there, 1 John chapter 5, starting in verse 9. It said, if we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.

That’s true right there. And I think I have talked to you about this. How many times in an average day do we take the witness of some person and believe what they say without question, without checking it out for ourselves?

I heard the weirdest news story on the way down here on the radio. there was evidently in St. Mary’s Parish, Louisiana, and I should have double-checked this story, but I didn’t have time because I was in the car on the way down here.

But according to this news story that I heard, sometime last year there was a cyber attack. In St. Mary’s Parish, Louisiana, there were text messages sent out to local residents about a chemical spill, supposedly from the parish or the county emergency management, about a chemical spill at one of the refineries there.

The emergency management chief for the parish got calls and said he didn’t know anything about this, had never heard of this chemical company. Suddenly, Twitter is ablaze with reports of this going on, CNN stories being posted. The CNN stories, the screenshots, everything were fake.

And it’s come to be alleged that it was the Russians pulling some cyber attack drill on the U. S. But all these people spread the story of this massive chemical explosion and fire in this refinery without ever checking any of the facts.

I thought, that’s incredible. Nobody thought to check if any of these accounts were true. Now, again, I don’t know all the details of the story.

I haven’t even had time to check and see did all that really happen. But what I know was the story was about people just spread the story without even thinking about it, without even checking, until it was exposed to be a hoax. And it’s not the only time that has happened.

How many times on a daily basis, and I’m not telling you, doubt everyone you talk to. But I’m just saying, how many times a day do we take somebody’s word for something and never give it a second thought? Somebody says, it’s raining outside.

I don’t necessarily have to go see for myself. I have no reason to doubt them. They say it’s raining.

Okay, it’s raining. Somebody says, okay, this happened. I was telling, Miss Wanda asked if I had any more Benjamin stories this week.

And I laughed because Friday, my mother took Benjamin and his cousin, who’s a week younger than him. I had Madeline. She took Benjamin and his cousin to Target there and more with my sister.

And there were people there in their swimwear. And Benjamin and his cousin started yelling, Nana, they’re naked, real loud. Embarrassed my sister and my mother said, why should we be embarrassed?

They know how they’re dressed. Now, my mother brought pictures back to show us what these people were in. I believed her.

I didn’t need to see pictures. Nightmares about those pictures. I didn’t need to see the pictures.

I took her at her word. She says Benjamin yelled something embarrassing in the middle of Target. You know what?

I believe it. How many times a day do we take somebody else’s word for something? And yet how skeptical is the world about the witness of God?

If we receive the witness of men, if we are willing to listen and buy the story, when men tell us something, why then should we be skeptical when God in his word has promised us something? That sounds backwards, doesn’t it? I get it.

There are people out there in the world who don’t believe in God. I get it. You’re not going to believe what God says.

I don’t want to say that’s fine, but I understand why you would come to that conclusion if you don’t believe in God. But people who believe in God, people who believe in Jesus Christ, people who have some respect for the Scriptures, if God says it, why would we not believe it when we’re willing to accept the premises that are thrown at us by fallible men all the time? He says, for the witness of God is greater.

For this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son. He says, and by the way, here is what God has said about his Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.

He that believeth not God hath made him a liar. So whatever God says about his Son, his witness is greater than that of any other man. Ladies and gentlemen, I know it will sound radical in 2015.

I do not care what the government says, what any government official says about Jesus Christ. I do not care what any Hollywood actor with a couple of brain cells to rub together. I’m sorry, that was mean. I don’t care what they say in a magazine interview about who Jesus Christ is.

I don’t care what Oprah thinks. And there were gasps all throughout the room. I don’t care.

I don’t care what anybody else says about Jesus Christ. Here’s what God says about Jesus Christ. And here it is, right here in black and white. God says some things about Jesus Christ, and anybody who says differently is taking the witness of man over the witness of God and calling God a liar. I believe it’s Romans says, let God be true and every man a liar.

Why would we take the witness of man over the witness of God who knows exactly who Jesus Christ is? He that believeth not God hath made him a liar he believeth not the record that God gave of his son. Okay, now that he’s sufficiently set the scene and told us you need to believe, you need to believe what God says, because here are the implications if you don’t.

You’re saying you know more than God. You’re saying he’s a liar. You’re taking the witness of fallible men over the witness of an infallible God.

So what is the witness? What does God say about his son, Jesus Christ? And this is the record, verse 11, and this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life and that this life is in his son.

Here’s the witness. Here’s what God says. Here’s the proof.

Verse 12 says, he that hath the son hath life and he that hath not the son of God hath not life. It is that simple. That is what God teaches.

That’s not it in its entirety. That’s not everything that God teaches. That’s not everything that God’s word says about Jesus Christ, but that’s what it boils down to.

He that has the Son has life, and he that has not the Son has not life. That’s why I’m so militant about this and say, I don’t care what any government official or Hollywood actor or any guru, I don’t care what the talking heads in our society say about Jesus Christ, because this is what God says. Now, Oprah can stand, and I bring up Oprah because I’ve seen the clip on YouTube from, I don’t know, I was probably a baby when it aired, But I’ve seen the clip of Oprah where she just raked the woman over the coals.

I don’t even know how long ago it was. It’s back when everybody had the big poofy hair. Maybe y’all were me.

Back in the 80s probably, early 90s. Just raked the woman over the coals on her show because she had the audacity to say she thought Jesus was the only way to heaven. I don’t care if Oprah’s shocked by that or not.

I don’t care if Joel Osteen can’t go on Larry King and answer the question, is Jesus Christ the only way to heaven? I know what it says in God’s word. He that has the Son has life, and he that has not the Son has not life.

That’s the witness of God. Now he says in verse 13, These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that ye may know that ye have eternal life. So when he says he that has the Son has life, and he that has not the Son has not life, he’s not saying here that everybody who’s a non-believer is dead.

There are plenty of non-believers running around the world today. He’s talking about this spiritual eternal life. If we have the Son, we have eternal life.

We have life that is eternal. We have life that never ends. We have life that no man can take away. That ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.

Now this has been a puzzling verse to me. Not because I don’t understand what that means, but I’ve not always understood why he repeated it. Okay, I’ve written to you that believe so that you may know you have eternal life and you may believe.

Why do they need to believe? They already believe. You know what?

Our faith is not perfect. Our faith is never as strong as it could be or as it should be. And we need a reminder every now and then.

We need a reminder every now and then of how firm, how sure God’s promises are. We need a little reinforcement at times. And so he says, I’ve written this to those who believe so that you may know that you have eternal life.

And the implication here is that you may continue to believe. That your faith may not be shaken because you know that you have eternal life and you know that who has given it to you. And he says in verse 14, and this is the confidence that we.

. . Folks, we are confident.

We are able to have confidence in what Christ has done for us. It broke my heart. I’ve given you this example before.

There’s a man that I pastored in Bethany who used to talk to me about salvation. He was a member of the church there from before I came. We used to talk about salvation, and he would raise doubts, or he would bring up doubts.

And I’d say, well, do you know where you’d go if you die? Well, I hope so. Folks, there’s a lot of places where hope is a good thing.

That’s not a good place to put the word hope. I hope so. If we’re in Christ, if we’ve trusted Christ as our Savior, we should have confidence.

We should know. And I’m not saying that you will never have doubts. I have doubted my salvation, not God’s power to save me.

For me, it was always, did I believe strong enough? Did I believe the right way? Until I came across some verses in the Bible that talked about him justifying those who worked not.

And I went, okay, it really has nothing to do with anything I can do. But he’d say, I hope so. Folks, we should have confidence.

We should be able to have confidence in what he’s done for us. Not, well, yeah, I trusted Christ. I believed what he said, so I hope so. says, I don’t really know if what he’s saying is true or not.

John says, this is the confidence that we have in him. That if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. Is it his will for us to be saved?

I believe so. He’s not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. If we ask him to forgive us, is he going to do it?

He says, if we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we ask anything according to his will, He will hear us. And we know that He hears us.

And we know we have this confidence that He will answer. So if we have asked Him to forgive us, that’s within His will. We’re asking within His will and we can be confident that He forgives sins and He gives us eternal life.

And we know that, excuse me, and if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him. If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, He shall ask, and he shall give life for them that sin not unto death. When I’ve taught on 1 John chapter 5 in the past, I’ve always skipped over these few verses.

Not because they’re not important, but because I wasn’t really sure why they were in this passage, how they fit in here. Because he’s talking assurance, assurance, assurance, assurance, sin unto death, assurance, assurance, assurance. Last night, studying this passage again for the 54th time, It finally clicked.

It finally made sense why he puts that in here. Look at this. If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death.

There is a sin unto death. I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not unto death.

So he’s talking about this sin unto death, which the Bible talks about. At some point, a believer, I believe, can sin to such an extent and such a point where God takes us out of this world before we do more damage to ourselves and others and to the cause of Christ. Now, I’ll say God is a lot more patient than I am. Because there are a lot of people, if I were him, I’d have taken out a long time ago.

And I probably need to be at the top of that list, to be honest. But there’s this sin unto death where God, and we could look at it as judgment or we could look at it as mercy. God says, I’m not going to let you hurt yourself or other people anymore. But it’s talking about a brother being overtaken in a fault here.

And it’s instructing the other Christians that if you see your brother overtaken in a fault and it’s not a sin unto death, he has not gone to the point that he’s sinned so much and so consistently and so willingly that God is just going to take him out. If he’s not to that point, you pray for him to be delivered from that sin. You pray and God will hear and answer that petition going back to the previous part of the passage.

Now, why is all of that in here? Because verse 18 says, We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not, but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. It says here Christians don’t sin.

Doesn’t it? Well, not exactly. Not exactly.

I have been told by people who understand Greek far better than I do. That when it says in verse 18, sinneth not, just like it talks about in 1 John chapter 3, where it says that Christians will not sin. That the way it uses the word sin, the grammar there is something we don’t have entirely in English.

It talks about continuing, a continuous action. Now, I tried to verify that for myself last night in my very limited, very limited understanding of Greek. I could not find that for myself.

It doesn’t mean that’s not true. It just means I’m not capable of digging to that point. But I’ve been told that means Christians will not continue on in a lifestyle of sin.

Okay, that sounds good. Go back to the last couple of verses we talked about with the sin unto death. And God desiring that we pray for each other when we’re overtaken in sin.

We don’t even need to look at the Greek here to figure out what he’s talking about. He’s talking about pray for each other to be delivered from sin. as long as it’s not a sin unto death, as long as things haven’t progressed that far.

Pray for your fellow Christians that they be delivered from sin when they’re mired into it. He says, because whosoever is born of God sineth not. He’s not talking here about never committing a sin.

Anybody there yet? Anybody to the point in your spiritual development where you never commit a sin? If so, I want to talk to you.

Give me some pointers later on. He’s not saying here that Christians never commit a sin. But when you put this together, we’re talking about praying for deliverance from sin.

What he’s saying here is that Christians do not go on being under the dominion of sin. We do not go on being controlled by our sin. We are not supposed to continue to be mired in a lifestyle of sin.

Will we sin? Yes, we will, unfortunately. I hate that.

There is nothing worse in this world, I’m convinced. I’ve been through a lot of pain in the last few years. Family issues, losing children, a lot of stuff that I never anticipated happened in me that has been gut-wrenching.

But I’m convinced there’s nothing worse in this world than the pain of having disappointed God. At least for me. When you sort of snap out of it after sin and you realize, what have I done?

And there’s just that feeling of I have let my father down. It’s an incredibly painful feeling. We’re going to sin.

I hate it, but it’s true. We’re going to sin. But is that supposed to be what characterizes our lifestyles?

Are we supposed to continue in sin? Are we supposed to walk in sin? Is a Christian, someone who is born of God, are we supposed to be able to walk in sin the way we used to?

Are we supposed to be able to not be bothered by it? I submit to you that when you’re born of God, we don’t continue in sin. Do we sin?

Absolutely. But you know what? We have the Holy Spirit setting off signals left and right saying, no, no, no, no, no. Calling us on it, convicting us of it.

And it should bother us. I think one of the signs that ought to make you stop and think about whether you’re really saved or not is if you can sin and continue in sin and not be bothered by it. As a Christian, when you sin and you feel broken and you feel guilty over it, you know what?

That’s a good sign. I’m not saying the sin itself is a good thing. And I’m not saying that you want to be mired in that guilt.

But that’s a sign that, hey, the Holy Spirit’s dealing with you. As believers, we sin and we should be bothered by it. And we should confess it.

And we should be reconciled to the Father. And then we should go on. What he’s talking about here about those who are born of God, sin not.

He’s talking about the former way. He’s saying, pray each other out of this because that’s not how Christians are supposed to live. See, I’ve always read this passage piecemeal, kind of taking that sin unto death part out and saying, I don’t understand why that’s in here.

Okay, now we’ve got to do grammar, calisthenics, and gymnastics to get around and figure out what verse 14, I’m sorry, verse 18 means. No, no, take it all together. He’s saying pray for each other.

Pray for each other to be delivered out of this sin because that’s not the lifestyle that a Christian ought to have. And a real Christian cannot and will not remain in that lifestyle for long. And we know, he says in verse 19, that we are of God and the whole world lieth in wickedness.

Now, that sounds, that could sound to the outside world like a very boastful statement. We know we are of God. Let me just bust my buttons here for a minute.

We know we’re a God in the whole world, life, and wickedness. Now that’s really not a boastful statement because he’s talked about in the previous few verses. We still have those sinful inclinations.

And but for the power of God to deliver us from sin and temptation, we would still be right there. It’s God who’s delivered us from the darkness of the world. It’s God who’s delivered us from the wickedness of the world.

It’s God. God is the sole reason why it says in Romans that sin shall not have dominion over us. It has nothing to do with, well, I climbed up out of the mud and cleaned myself off, and now I’m a good person.

God dug us out of the mud and the mire and washed us off with the blood of Christ. It has everything to do with his goodness and none of our own. Verse 20 says, and we know that the Son of God has come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

Amen. You may be wondering at this point, well, that didn’t really say a lot about eternal security. Because today, again, is not to give you a case for eternal security.

I don’t know that any of these messages will be made to give you a case for eternal security that is designed to bring somebody in from a standpoint of losing your salvation and be able to convince them. But this today is about what eternal security is not, what it does not mean. And there is the mention of eternal life, and there is the mention of the confidence that we have in God.

There is the mention of praying for one another to be pulled out of sin when we fall into it. Does it ever mention as a consequence of falling into sin that we will lose our salvation? No.

It just says that because that’s not how Christians live. That’s not, Christians can’t stay there long. I’m of the understanding of Scripture, that when we fall into sin, we fall into temptation, we stay there.

We all know people, I’m sure we all know people, who have walked the walk for a little while, talked the talk for a little while, and then have just gone off the deep end. And they’re so far away from God, can you even see to find your way back? And there are some Christians who would say, well, they lost their salvation.

I’m of the understanding from Scripture, they never had it. Now, that doesn’t include everybody who falls into sin. If you come back, everybody strays to some extent.

We all come back to God if we’re born of God. If you stray and stay away, it’s a pretty good indication you never had that salvation. Because he says, this is not how we behave.

But he says, pray that your brothers will be delivered from this. And he said, because this is not how God wants you to act with this salvation. This is not how God allows you to act with this salvation that you’ve been given.

This salvation that was purchased by Jesus Christ that brings eternal life. As Christians with eternal life, this passage teaches that we should walk in confidence with God. That we should walk in assurance of knowing the God we serve and what He’s done for us.

and what He’s purchased for us, what His promises to us are, knowing where we’re going, and also knowing that when we do trip and fall into sin, that we don’t have to stay there. The world sins because it doesn’t know any better. But we’re told, again, as it says in Romans, sin shall no longer have dominion over you, for you’re not under the law, but under grace.

Sin is not my boss. And because of what Christ has done, I don’t have to listen to sin and I don’t have to stay down when I trip and fall into it. Because He’s promised me eternal life.

I have a God who still loves me. I don’t understand why. But I have a God who still loves me.

I have a Savior who still died for me. You know what? Romans says that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

He commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. while we were in the very act of sinning, when we were at our ugliest, is the moment that Christ died for us. I have a God who still loves me in spite of my sin.

I have a Savior who died for me even knowing the stuff I was going to get involved in. And His promises are not conditional on my behavior. I don’t see that anywhere in here where He’s talking about eternal life.

There’s no mention of semi-eternal life. But in this passage, we’re not just shown the confidence and the assurance and the eternal nature of the life that we have, but there are also some principles that we can pull out of here as well that tell us what salvation is not, what eternal security is not. And if you’re new to this discussion, if you’re new to this controversy that’s been going on for hundreds of years anyway, about it, eternal security means the idea that once we trust Christ as Savior, We cannot lose that salvation.

There are some principles about eternal security that we can pull out of here that remind us about what it is not. Before we talk about what it is, we need to talk about what it’s not. First of all, eternal security is not the result of saying magic words.

It’s not the result of saying magic words. I read articles from time to time written by preachers who complain about what they call easy believism. And I get what they’re talking about.

I don’t know that I agree with the terminology though. All we have to do is believe. The Bible makes that abundantly clear.

All we have to do for salvation. And I hesitate even to use the word do because we could take that as we earn something. But the only thing that’s required, believe.

He says it. And when you look at it in terms of what Christ was required to go through and what’s required of us, He could not have made it any easier for us. Could not have made it any simpler for us.

And yet they complain about easy believism. What they’re talking about is this idea, just repeat after me. I like, there’s a man who calls it instead quick prayerism.

Quick prayerism. Now you can very quickly pray a prayer and believe in Jesus Christ and be saved. If you really believe in Jesus Christ. But how many people in this country, how many people around the world, prayed a prayer in church, they repeated after the pastor, they had no idea what they were saying, no idea what the words meant, had no conviction of sins, and still repeated some words and think they’re going to heaven as a result.

Was there belief? Was there being born again? Or did I just say words?

I think that’s why we see so many people fall away from the faith. It’s not that we’re losing Christians. It’s not that Christians are walking away.

There are the same number of born-again Christians that there were. It’s just the ones who just repeated some magic words are showing their true nature, their true colors. And I don’t say that to attack them.

And that’s probably more on the churches in this country than it is on the people who prayed the prayers. And I’ve heard stories of people going out and soul winning and going to people’s houses. And one story in particular, a man